Prolapse – I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face

Tapete

Although the first new Prolapse studio album since 1999’s unfairly overlooked Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes — after several years of scattered live reunion appearances — comes with a very Prolapse title, it’s actually drawn somewhat unexpectedly from a vintage Canned Heat lyric, as divulged in a recent interview.

Yet, despite the unexpected origin, it suits the spirit of the deeply omnivorous plundering from whatever sources serve the band’s collectivist broken mirror reflections upon the world. A modus operandi that is also visually illustrated by a none-more-fitting front cover image.

Arguably, we need the onetime Leicester – and now geographically-scattered — group’s shattered and surrealist perspectives more than we did back in the more carefree nineties. In fact, musically and philosophically, Prolapse make greater sense in the post-everything environments of 2025. Which explains why the core human-generated algorithms did not need any artificial reinvention for this fifth LP. Hence, the overall formula is essentially refortified with extra grit and the experience of age, added in from the interregnum years.

This means guitarists David Jeffreys, Donald Ross Skinner and Pat Mardsen, plus bassist Mick Harrison and drummer Tim Pattinson, are to be found forging all manner of gnarly and snaking sonic structures, over which Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard layer their inimitable semi-spoken vocals and unconventional narrative-led wordplay. Through this blending of both sculpted and improvised lines of attack, the eclectic Prolapse magic of yore is reconjured and expanded upon.

Certainly, the more barbed sides of proceedings arrest the senses. From the pummelling Fugazi-meets-The Fall opening of “The Fall Of Cashline” onwards, it’s clear that this still an ensemble hungry for rawness, inspired by internal camaraderie, rich record collections and the messier aspects of existence.

Therefore, through the Slint-goes-motorik surrealism of “Cha Cha Cha 2000”; the hypnotic six-minute churn of “Err On The Side Of Dead”; the Shellac-goes-shoegaze swirl of “Cacophony No. C”; the raucous landslide of “Jackdaw”; and the pulsing effects-drenched “Ectoplasm United”, the septet’s inventive noise funnelling is refreshingly unfettered.

However, there also remains room for subtly amidst the more racket-making passages. This leads us to the sublime epic “Ghost In The Chair”, which soundtracks an imagined human-to-spectre conversation between Derrick and Steelyard with dense claustrophobic atmospherics; the slow-building post-punk kosmische of the mighty call-and-response-fuelled “On The Quarter Days”; and the languid murmured epilogue of “A Forever”.

Whilst perhaps only the absence one of their occasional acid-folk detours or a more straight-ahead art-pop moment holds back I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face from surpassing the potency of 1994’s Pointless Walks To Dismal Places or 1997’s The Italian Flag, this is still a damn fine and enthralling Prolapse record its own right. Moreover, it’s indubitably a far stronger democratic set than many might have expected after such a long absence from the fray. Hopefully too, this is just the start of Prolapse’s return to active recording duties.

-Adrian-